New TPF member here, quite experienced at port consumption, although my no means a subject matter expert, and still getting into the hang of the on-line side of things!

Have a few cases of decent port stashed in the family cellar. The bottles don't get an outing as much as they might due to lack of like-minded people with whom to share my enjoyment! (I am sure it's not just me that winces inside when a decent bottle of 1970 only gets round the table once at Christmas lunch, with 10+ rellies who would quite happily skull Blue Nun glug full wine goblets of your finest leaving none for the 2 or 3 connoisseurs!)

Have signed up to the '97 London event in June so hope to meet a few of you then

Cedars28 wrote:I am sure it's not just me that winces inside when a decent bottle of 1970 only gets round the table once at Christmas lunch, with 10+ rellies who would quite happily skull Blue Nun glug full wine goblets of your finest leaving none for the 2 or 3 connoisseurs!

Give them Blue Nun. Or give the the excellent and cheap Graham Crusted bottled 1998 (£14 or £15 or £20, promotion dependent, from Sainsbury’s). The following day, the lucky few (and plenty here have done it with ‘the lucky one’) can have the really good stuff.

I did grin when reading your introduction - we all feel your pain. We've all been in the situation where you end up thinking "Why did I bother? That could just as well have been a £5 bottle of port for all the attention it got!". The guidance seems to be to have two types of port - the good stuff in a decanter discretely passed to those who will appreciate it and a couple of bottles of very respectable port (such as the Graham Crusted suggested by Julian) which are shared with the majority. Some might consider it impolite to discriminate amongst your guests - but I suggest it is no more nor less than the impoliteness shown by someone who does not appreciate the special nature of the wine or port you have carefully chosen to bring pleasure to your fellow diners.

In all seriousness, part of the reason I enjoy our offlines so much is that I know I am in the company of people who will appreciate as much as me the bottles that we share.

I can be at home drinking a good bottle. That is excellent — let it not be dismissed. But, alternatively, I could be in The Bung Hole, drinking only one eighth of my good bottle, but also drinking one eighth of my chums’ good bottles. Which is even better.

It's nice to see you have been in similar situations. The problem is they (the Blue Nun relatives) do rather like the cachet of a good vintage port without really enjoying it, so discriminatory serving can only be done in secret which never seems quite up to my ethical standards. Also I pity the empty bottle of Croft '66 which then has to stomach being refilled with Tescos '94! Oops that's so specific it does sound like I might actually have done that.